Do Business Connectivity Services use live data

Question

In SharePoint 2010 the business data catalog will be replaced by Business Connectivity Services. With BDC the data in SharePoint would only be synchronized with the datasource when requested.

Is this still the case with BCS or does this work with live, up to date, data?

Answer 1

Data in External Lists is being retrieved on fly. When user opens a page SharePoint retrieves list data from external source.

When you are using BCS in External Column selected value for that column is stored to SharePoint list until you hit refresh.